LIFE THROUGH A LOOP

MOUNA MOUNAYER I WRITER I DIRECTOR I PRODUCER I WIFE and not necessarily in that order…

31 Dec 2014

2014 has been a year of major twists and turns, ups and downs, joys and sorrows. I’ve lost friends and family members, become a godmother to a gorgeous baby girl, learned new things and forgotten many others, seen close ones suffer injustice, designed and installed a new kitchen while living in the house. Lost my mind and learned how to control my body. We’ve all witnessed wars, the rise of unspeakable terrorism and terrible global tragedies to name a few. All in all it was an ‘interesting’ year. And as with all interesting experiences I am glad that it is over. I wish all my family and friends a new year, which brings you joy, enthusiasm, good health and lots of luck and I wish some much needed peace for the planet as a whole. Happy New Year.

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29 Apr 2014

One year before the Second Gulf War, in 2002, I had the privilege of filming the treasures of southern Iraq. I filmed Mudhifs, the guesthouses of the disappearing Marsh Arabs, built from reeds in the same way as their ancient Mesopotamian ancestors. I (more…)

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3 Apr 2014

Fourteen years ago, my partner Najat Rizk and myself began to document the Arab World in a series of television documentaries, current affairs programmes, talk shows and biographies. Our subjects ranged from religion to politics and social issues, from history to archaeology, from arms dealing to drug trafficking. We filmed it, lived it and have the archive to prove it. A few months ago we began digitising our archive and today I am proud to share with you some of those wonderful moments. Please click the following link if you would like to explore the Arab World as we have and to see it in both its highest and lowest moments: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-goU96Bp33nHSz87pBioU37sOiP4_cJe

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29 Nov 2013

I have the great honour and pleasure in announcing that I have been working with UNRWA to help launch their unique visual archive on the history of the Palestinian refugees since 1948. The site was launched yesterday after a great deal of hard work from teams on either side of the Atlantic. If you want to have a look at the archive please visit the UNRWA home page for the link.
The following extract is taken from the UNRWA home page for the Archive Collection;

UNRWA PHOTO AND FILM ARCHIVE FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES
“Collective memory is a vital element of communal identity, and this rich archive documents one element of Palestinian identity: the refugee experience. Digitization was our only option for preservation and I am grateful to the Welfare Association, Bank of Palestine, PADICO, Wataniya and PalTel, as well as to the Governments of France and Denmark, for making this possible.” – Filippo Grandi, UNRWA Commissioner-General.

Ever since it was established, UNRWA has recorded all aspects of the life and history of Palestine refugees through film and photography. This has led to a rich audiovisual archive, containing more than 430,000 negatives, 10,000 prints, 85,000 slides, 75 films and 730 videocassettes. In 2009, the UNRWA Archive was inscribed by UNESCO in the Memory of The World list, recognizing its historical value. Digitizing the archive not only rescues and preserves all the material, but also makes it easier to categorize and disseminate, giving new life to this historical resource.

The archive consists of images and films taken by UNRWA photographers (and their predecessors) throughout the tumultuous second half of the twentieth century and start of the twenty-first. It includes iconic images of Palestinians having to leave their homes, in 1948; the establishment of refugee camps, in the 1950s; the second flight, in 1967; the hostilities in Lebanon; and the unrest from the second half of the 1980s to the early twenty-first century. The lives of Palestine refugees are central to the archive, often in the context of UNRWA work, but its portraits of important public figures and scenes of turbulent political events serve as a reminder of the troubled context that has become part of the community’s collective memory over the past six decades.

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The buzz at this evening’s closing ceremony at the Beirut International Film Festival was palpable. A week long celebration of film ended with an award ceremony for the best short films and best documentaries. Having watched all the films as a member of the jury it was my great honour to read out the winners. Out Of The Darkness a documentary by Lebanese Sonia Habib won the gold Aleph statuette and Sanctity, a Saudi Arabian film by Ahd Kamel won best short film. I want to thank the organisers and most especially Ms Colette Naufal for allowing me to participate in this wonderful forum for Lebanese and regional films. It was refreshing to see a younger generation of film makers tackling tough subjects from rape to pleasure marriage and from revolution to the right to drive. Unfortunately due to the political instability plaguing us at the moment most of the winners could not attend the festival or pick up their prizes.

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4 Oct 2013

It was a great opening night for the Beirut International Film Festival showing Alphonso Cuaron’s Gravity. I was very pleased to see a great turn out with a lot of members of our industry and of all generations. The press was there in force too giving young Lebanese film makers a platform which they don’t normally have to express themselves.

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29 Sep 2013

I am very honoured to have been chosen as one of the jury members of the Beirut International Film Festival taking place from the 2nd to the 10th of October 2013. When I arrived in the Arab world 20 years ago there were very few locally made films outside countries like Egypt and there were even fewer documentaries made by Arabs for Arabs talking about topics and issues which are important to society as a whole. I am happy to say that today the story is very different and the plethora of films and subjects I have been watching are a breath of fresh air. On the whole I have found that in the documentary genre especially story structures are tighter and production values are high, not to mention the overall polished professionalism that the film makers are exhibiting. I am very proud to be able to see this evolution. I hope that many of you will be able to join us at the BIFF. Looking forward to seeing you there.

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Looking up at the stars, from my balcony overlooking a wintry Mediterranean sea, my heart smiles to see Orion looking down on me. The great Greek hunter, father of the biblical Nephilim, ancient Egyptian constellation of rebirth and the afterlife has been my winter companion these past twenty years. It seems fitting that the constellation is shining brightly in the sky on this last day of a defining year, a giant frozen Nimrod forever chasing the seven sisters across the dark void. I have often asked myself why this particular constellation calls to my senses and my intellect?

At the end of this year and end of this age, it occurs to me that the symbols of Orion are very relevant in my life as it has played out in 2012. The first part of the year I spent inventing an afterlife for myself. The life I wish to live after the end of this life and just like the Mayans meant by the end of an age, so I mean by the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, built on the ashes of my life experience. If anything, 2012 showed me that it is time to move into a new phase of being, working, living. But how does a middle-aged woman go about re-inventing her life?

I find that I, like most people, hold on to things tightly, things like experience, like success, like pain, like fear. So for a start, I had to let go and hope the fall did not break my neck. Then I had to decide on my path and no matter how murky, set about finding people to help me clear it. This I did with the aid of partners, friends and colleagues. I travelled and I met new people with exciting new ideas for an old analoguer like me, ideas which will allow me to re-invent myself in a brave new digital age. I know I am being deliberately vague but I can’t reveal my secrets just yet, though I can mysteriously say that the American bible belt is in my future and you can make of that what you will.

You are probably asking yourselves why re-invent your life? Surely the status-quo we all work so hard towards should not be messed with but I say to you that just when you want to sit and stretch on your laurels life has a way to shake things up making you move on to new and frightening places, with or without your permission. So like Orion, I spent six months hunting in the void and found the beginnings of a re-birth and vision which will shape my future and hopefully put food on the table at the same time.

In the last part of the year, I directed a biography documentary series on the life of one of Lebanon’s most famous war lords. Like the Nephilim this man was viewed by some as a god-like giant and by others as a harbinger of death and destruction. I feel oddly close to this man whose life was a tightrope walk between bloodshed and demise, living in a period of this country’s history which I did not experience first-hand. Working on the series it occurred to me that he, like Orion, was hunting for a solution to the many problems swamping his people, his country and his identity. I wonder sometimes if he is standing behind me while I edit his life into viewable chunks. His charismatic face calling out to me from the afterlife about his longings and his regret. Watching him in jerky black and white images or Polaroid coloured video I wonder what he would make of this digital age of ours and what he would make of me re-interpreting his life? I can see him waggling his finger and shaking his head in sorrow because here, in Lebanon, seemingly nothing changes, only time passes. But that sentiment is not absolute, things do change and in the retelling of a life cut short by assassination my protagonist is now like Orion stuck as a giant in the void of this country’s history. And it is so easy to get stuck in the quagmire that is the Middle East. Its problems stifling. Its vision short. Yet for all that my rebirth will be from here because no other place can invent and re-invent a stubborn hunter like Nimrod, a phalli-centric god like Osiris, a skirt chaser like Orion and little old me.

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27 Sep 2012

COITUS INTERRUPTUS FROM BEIRUT TO LONDON

‘His warm hand moving down my spine, taking the sheet with it, making my skin tingle and coming to rest just above my bottom.
I smiled.
I had done it. I finally had done it. I found him. He was right there in bed with me and it wasn’t the tequila talking! I was naked in bed with him having been given so many orgasms I lost count and I knew he was it. He was the shadowy-faced man I’d been daydreaming about since I could remember…’.
‘Are you British or Arab Miss?’
‘Hunh?’
I turn blind sided by this polite question from a cleric in his black and white clerical outfit complete with beard, headdress and a startling mole growing out of the side of his nose. I stare at nose mole trying valiantly to remember why I was staring. Oooooh yes multiple orgasms he interrupted with stupid question of identity.
‘half and half.’ I say and pointedly return to my iPad to finish what the riveting shadowy man was about to do to the heroine multiple more times.
‘Muslim or Christian?’. Now I ask you how fair is it that my sister travelling last week to Singapore gets to sit (so she tells me) next to a real live shadowy special ops guy who looks like Aaron Eckhart (and who apparently has washboard this and that) and who is traveling the world to find himself (poor lost lamb) and I end up traveling today next to a man in a frock who wants to ask about my religion. So I expound in Arabic no less for an hour on Bhuddism. He was an Iraqi cleric going from Baghdad to London for a conference on religious dialogue. Our conversation then deteriorates to how many children I have and when I say none he tells me I am not trying hard enough… Now really, I ask you…why me? What did I do to deserve this particular messenger? Sadly I had to stop reading because nose mole seemed to be staring at me every time I came to any juicy bits…turned me right off the shadowy man let me tell you. Don’t you just hate it when that happens.

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I recently attended the first WAR CRIMES conference held by SOLON, in February 2009, at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. I would first like to congratulate SOLON on the calibre of speakers and delegates that this conference attracted. The organisers brought together under one roof some of the foremost experts on all aspects of war crimes from the four corners of the world. It was a veritable International Who’s Who of lawyers, judges, historians, philosophers and even forensic anthropologists. For me, one of the most notable subjects discussed was the access to justice for witnesses/victims in war crime courts. It was interesting to note the difference between The Hague and Cambodia in regards to the rights and representation of ‘victims.’ The creation of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in 2006, set up to deal with the war crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge allows, for the first time, the victim’s right to participate in the trials with the same legal rights as the prosecution and the defence. This is clearly not the case with the ICC or ICTY who, from what I heard, could almost be seen to seem to treat victim/witnesses as a necessary nuisance and certainly without the same rights as set out by the ECCC. There are lessons to be learned from that.

There were many debates within the seminars about the usage of the term ‘victim’. In his presentation, Jose Pablo Baraybar, Executive Director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), made a pertinent point when he stated that perhaps, instead of the concept of victim-hood and its psychological implications, we should re-enable the survivors of war atrocities to be (in his words) ‘actors’ and not ‘subjects’ in the process healing of war-torn societies. Listening to the speakers, an unpalatable reality was brought forcefully home: it is simply impossible for international and national war crime tribunals to right the wrongs committed against vulnerable people. All recognise that there have been ‘victims’ of war atrocities, but on the other hand should these people be sacrificed for the sake of balancing national and international interests? How useful would it be in the national interest to prosecute war crimes decades after the event? Would it not be better to attempt to foster some kind of closure in order to bring stability to that country? Lesley Abdela and many others argued that this was not the way forward but it is clearly an on-going debate. While Jose Pablo and those on the Bosnian panel pointed out that it was impossible and unrealistic to hope that all the perpetrators could be brought to trial. At a conservative estimate it would take 20 years; and the Bosnian panel honestly estimated that they had, at most, ten years before the witnesses/victims would stop being ‘useful’ in terms of their memories, as they aged. A shocking way of expressing it, maybe – but it was a measure of how difficult the task they face actually is, forcing on them such practical estimations. It made sense to me to debate these issues.

As a Lebanese, I recall a friend talking to me of how, during the Civil War there, when he was in the Lebanese Army, one day he was fighting for his country and shooting (to kill) Syrians and also against the militias. Then the next, he was helping to train his former enemies, who might eventually kill him, having benefitted from his training methods, because a peace treaty had been signed. It was almost like the twilight zone for him to be sleeping right next to your enemy of yesterday. But for the sake of closure he had felt he had to do it, but we forget that men like him are human beings and emotions like that are not so easily closed, just because a government signs a peace treaty. In Lebanon the only person to be imprisoned for war crimes was Dr Samil Geagea of the Force Libanaise, who served a sentence of eleven years, while all the other militia war lords went on to become politicians. Is that a way forward, as it has forced them to work together? Of course there were not (apart from Sabra and Chattila, which were a different matter) war crimes on the scale being seen in some places, but the massacres of Christians in the Chouf by the Druze have never been dealt with, and while it was, in one sense, part of a long tradition of hostility between the two communities, it was a shocking event when neighbours rose against neighbours and it has left a lasting legacy of distrust between the two communities. But there has been no question of prosecuting any perpetrators and even today, Christians are reluctant to return to their former houses in the Chouf. So I remain unsure about the importance of war crimes tribunals but convinced that something needs to be done – a veil being drawn over such atrocities is neither respectful nor healing. Perhaps Jose Pablo Baraybar’s suggestion of reconstructing the drama for those left is the best we can hope for in the majority of cases?

Another powerful voice was Cissa Wa Numbe. He had gone around to all the villages and asked questions of them that they wanted to hear answered at the conference. Essentially, it seemed, one of the most urgent ones for them was: Why were all these war trials instituted against the weaker third world countries? How easy would it be to institute proceedings against a powerful Western nation? It was so powerful a point to make, that it really resonated with me, especially coming from such a passionate and good speaker as Cissa Wa Numbe. But all the speakers at the conference seemed impassioned about their particular subject of expertise and it was clear that they were all fighting the good fight. As long as they carry on doing so, the perpetrators of war crimes around the world will not go unpunished. Although, unfortunately, I was unable to attend the closing Round Table discussion for the ways forward in terms of policies and practices, I overheard the Honourable Shireen Fisher tell Dr Judith Rowbotham, one of the main organizers, that there must be a follow-up conference in 2011. I have to say, as an impartial observer, I second that motion. Watch this space!

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This very serious corner of Life Through A Loop is reserved for the writing of my very serious sister – Mayada Mounayer-Rigby AKA the academic who covers war crimes conferences and other heavy pursuits like why women in Lebanon got suffrage but have not participated in politics. Well the conferences are heavy and the subject matter arousing in its potential for subjective debate but her turn of phrase and her keen eye kept me reading and at the end of the day that is worth space on any blog. So if you enjoy history, politics and/or the history of politics then this is the spot for you.

If you enjoy any part of this blog please tick the LIKE and FOLLOW buttons.

The eagerly awaited 2nd Biennial War Crimes Conference, organised by SOLON, was held 3 to 5 March 2011 at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), Russell Square, London. This year SOLON was supported in hosting this event by the following partners:

I am aware that I cannot possibly do justice to all the papers presented over the three-day conference so what follows are just some of the highlights of the 2nd Biennial War Crimes Conference. Please click on the link below to continue reading:

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1 Jan 2012

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It is the night of New Year’s Eve and all the house is silent. The rooms are dark and I can see the lights flickering on the bays of Jounieh and Beirut from my arm-chair. Then all is dark. Ah yes it is 6 PM. The room shakes, the glass rattles, I hear a roar, the lights flicker on, off, on again and die. The engine roars, rolls and 60 seconds later we have lift off. Where I live in Lebanon we have electricity four hours on and four to six hours off depending on whether the government power station is limping, lagging or PMSing on that particular day. It is New Year’s Eve and you would think the government would be generous enough for 24 hour electricity on the this the last day of the year but I think maybe they are afraid that the year will go out with a bang. Unfortunately not the big fireworks that we are so fond of here but rather the big bang of Lebanon’s electricity stations exploding under the pressure. But, our generator is powered up, the lights are on and my mother is insisting I see the suckling pig she is cooking for our New Year’s Eve dinner. My mother lives above me and since the generator is on, the lift is off. So I trudge up the stairs to stare at a suckling pig which took one hour to get into the oven. Ovens today, it seems, are not built to cook suckling pigs. God but the smell is delicious. (more…)

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8 Dec 2011

Mouna Mounayer & Najat Rizk Partners and Friends @ Firehorse

“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.” Bill Gates

As I walked up onto the stage of the large auditorium at the Congre Istanbul Merkezi (Istanbul Congress Center), with my partner of twelve years, Najat Rizk, to collect our AllWorld Network Arabia 500 medals, I was reminded of Bill Gates’ quote about partnerships and success. In our case a truer word could not have been spoken. In no way is the next thought logical or business like but our partnership has an ingredient which to me is akin to magic. Laugh it up if you must but I tell you there is a secret ingredient which made itself known from the first instance. Anne Habibi, one of the co-founders of the AllWorld network, referred to us as the ‘Dynamic Duo’ of the Arab production world. Thanks Anne, you know we are going to be arguing for the rest of the week as to who is Batman and who is Robin? Almost from that first instance there was a synergy between us but it was not necessarily a given. Two women, two film-makers, two ambitions but we shared the same vision, wanted to climb the same mountain, are almost exactly the same age and interestingly, I had named the company for my horoscope and it turned out it was one she shared – so we are both Firehorses. And if you know anything about Firehorses then you know that after the blinkers are off the relationship should go downhill fast. But not for us. I have had other partners, good ones, successful ones but no one like Najat and for her no one like me. Coincidence? Serendipity? Who knows but I do know that though we could have had success solo, together, the lows have not been lonely and getting to the highs has been an adventure worthy of a television documentary. Who would have thought, two women living in a predominantly patriarchal society, would face it head on while making films on Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Israel’s relationship with Hezbollah, among others and come through it with their reputations made as serious film-makers, setting the stage for Firehorse to become one of the premier production companies in the Arab world for Factual Entertainment. What makes our double act so special? Is it that Najat is a doer and I am a writer? Could it be that her knowledge and love of regional politics and my love of history and of story structure make for one strong film? Is she Robert De Nero to my Martin Scorsese? Too American. Am I David Lean to her Alec Guinness? Too British. Is she Johnny Depp to my Tim Burton? Too weird. We come from different backgrounds, different countries and types of upbringing. She is a child of war torn Beirut, growing up dodging rockets while going to school and inhaling the politics of the middle east with her packed lunch. I grew up in London in the 1980’s. New Wave music, big shoulder pads and whether Boy George was gay or asexual were the landmarks of my childhood. I remember staying home from school when the IRA put a bomb in letterbox. I remember walking past the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 and wondering what the police were doing surrounding the building and closing all the roads (ok – give me a break I was…young) but that is the extent of violent politics affecting my childhood. My biggest angst was surviving the Opus Dei elements at my school instead of surviving to see another day. So not the same childhood. Not the same early adulthood either but interestingly she did geography and geo-politics at university and I did archaeology and history. Then she became a producer and I became a writer-director and that is where we came together. We have never competed for each other’s positions either while making a film or within our company. In the end I guess I am Mouna to her Najat and that has worked for us over, above and through all the times and different moods that colour our relationship. Looking back at the last twelve years and what made our partnership so special (aside from the magical ingredient) was trust. Trust encompasses so many elements; love, respect, friendship to name a few and whether we are talking films, formats, strategy or having a screaming match, we never lost site of our baby. Firehorse. We created it as film-makers. We are evolving it as creative entrepreneurs. I think I have just coined a new term? Do I get another entrepreneurship medal for that? Pretty please. Finally, as we receive our AllWorld Network medals for being part of the Arabia 500, I would like to thank Anne Habibi and Deidre Coyle the co-founders of AllWorld for a wonderful three days in Istanbul for networking, for learning, for sharing and for a little reflection on the meaning of entrepreneurship, business partnership and extending your hand in friendship and business to people and countries never before on our radar. Namely Pakistan here we come. Hope you are ready for us Firehorses. PS: I am definitely Batman to Najat’s Robin. I am taller. You cannot have a short Batman to a tall Robin – it aesthetically wrong. Ok I am also older…by a few minutes… so that makes me Batman. And finally Batman does not have a Frenchy accent! Yes, I am Batman to her Robin. Too right.

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‘Cash flow is more important than your mother.’ quote by Professor Kenneth Morse

What makes a tired, jaded and somewhat disheartened Arab woman entrepreneur sit up, take notice and regain her enthusiasm? It could be the fact that the sessions today, at the Second Global Entrepreneur Summit and AllWord Network, were extremely interesting and enlightening. Could be the enthusiasm of other business men and women, could be that we are being actively feted by government ministers, Harvard professors and Venture Capitalists. Could be the story of the Saudi woman who won the AllWorld Network number one start up and got up to accept her prize in front of 500 Saudi men who gave her a standing ovation. Could be all of these things.

But while listening to Professor Kenneth Morse, ex MIT, ex Harvard, expound on the fire in the gut of entrepreneurs and their inexhaustible drive to achieve their dream, even when every one around them is telling them to give it up. I remembered.

I remembered those gut aching, joyous days when Najat and I shared a small desk, one computer, a telephone, in a two by four room convinced that we were the Arab world’s answer to David Attenborough. We were going to make documentaries that were going to blow Arab broadcaster’s socks off. We had a company, we had a vision but we didn’t have a business plan, or a strategy, we had no capital, hell we had no money. VC’s were not beating a path to our door. In fact I can safely say I had no idea what venture capital was and wouldn’t have believed we could be eligible for it. Finance, though needed to survive, was not something we actively pursued. In hindsight it seems crazy.

So how did we make it with no money to speak of, other than that earned on projects in an ad hoc way? We had an idea. One based on my love of history and Najat’s knowledge of the region. Something no one had done before. A series of documentary programmes on the religions of the Arab world. Through Najat’s contacts at the time we met the head of Al Jazeera television. He loved the idea for the new documentary channel Al Jazeera was launching and asked us to develop the series. Of course, like most Arab broadcasters, development fees were and are unheard of and of course were not forthcoming.

We spent a year developing the project, researching, writing treatments, working on budgets, living on peanuts. You could have sent a rocket to Mars and brought it back on the energy we had. Finally the series was ready to unveil to the powers that be at Al Jazeera. Off we went, borrowing money to travel to Doha. They loved it. Wanted it. Started the contractual process. We went back to Beirut to wait. And wait. And then war broke out.

The Second Gulf war started and a few months in, the Americans were very unhappy with the way Al Jazeera was portraying the events in Baghdad. Putting pressure on the Qatari government, the American administration had the head of Al Jazeera removed from his post. Had they but known what this would mean to two woman sitting in a tiny office in Jounieh in Lebanon, I am sure President Bush would have had second thoughts about the whole matter.

Oh. My. God. Please replace the man in Munch’s Scream with me and Najat and you’ll get some idea of our initial reaction.

Once we recovered from the melt down you would have thought that that was that. But hell no! We could see the potential, the business, the success, the money and we had the bit between our teeth. We were entrepreneurs and did not know it.

For six months Al Jazeera put us off telling us that the contract was being written, it was in the legal department, in finance, in HR, they lost it, they found it, they moved premises and lost it again. One bright morning, we decided as a last ditch effort to borrow more money and go to Doha and search the Al Jazeera offices ourselves, if necessary, for the contract.

Arriving in Doha, we make our way to the Al Jazeera Documentary offices for a meeting with the new head of channel. The previous day we had arranged with his assistant, who knew and liked Najat and I to look for the contract. She did. And God bless that woman she found it and had it ready for her boss’s signature.

Now the contract was for a 15 part documentary series of the religions (and sects) of the Arab world and we had budgeted for that. The budget took into consideration among other things, five crew (director, producer, camera man, sound engineer and assistant producer) travelling to 15 countries and staying approximately three weeks in each country for the filming. That description alone should give you a clue about the size of budget I am talking about – large and for broadcasters outsourcing factual entertainment (a rarity in those days) – very large. The head of the channel solemnly read the contract which I believe he had not actually seen before the day we arrived in Qatar. He very slowly took out a pen, while Najat and I sat like statues too afraid to move lest he change his mind. Whereupon he said ‘I would like to make one change.’ We looked nervously at each other and at him but said nothing. He said ‘I wish to remove a word and then I will sign the budget.’ We were numb. He scratched the word out. As the contract was in Arabic and upside down I was unsure which word was struck-through. Najat clutched my hand. He said I think for this budget we can take out the word Arab. Hmmm….My brain scrambled to re-arrange the title of the series. The Religions Of The World… Not …Arab World. The budget was made for the Arab world not the world. What? How? Is he kidding I thought? One look at Najat told me, no, he was not kidding. If we wanted this contract then we had to accept this condition though no way in hell was that budget going to cover the world! The world required a much, much larger budget!

To cut a long story short. We accepted the contract. We accepted to give the broadcaster a letter of credit and a guarantee for 25% of the money. How we got the bank to accept this is another story. We accepted things we had no idea of. No one had done this before. We are still accepting things that should not be. There are no adequate safeguards in place for companies like ours in the Arab world and maybe there never will be. But having said all that – wow – what a time it was for us and is for us now in this region. That series, did not make us rich but it did put us on the map. Work followed and apart from a few glitches, such as invasions and skirmishes, we have grown into the company we are today.

I believe over the last decade I have matured into an entrepreneur even if I was not born one and today I am no longer tired even though the battles facing pan-Arab entrepreneurship seem only to get tougher. I am no longer tired as I recognise and feel again the gut aching enthusiasm for what I do.

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The second Global Entrepreneur Summit, Istanbul and AllWorld Arabia 500 + Turkey
Day One

All’s changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born.

William Butler Yeats quoted by US Vice President Joe Biden at the second Global Entrepreneurship summit in Istanbul today Saturday 3 December 2011.

Woke up this morning feeling cranky. Gluttony is so very unattractive in people never mind a woman who should know better. Gluttony plus middle age and you have a recipe for a sleepless night even when you are sleeping on the signature bed in one of Istanbul’s leading funky hotels – the W. Stumbling out of bed as I did not want to miss Vice President Biden’s speech at the opening of the second Global Entrepreneurship summit I look around my ‘Wonderful’ room and find a big puddle of Water on the floor. Room not so Wonderful then, well at least not in the way it is advertised on the W Istanbul website. Last time I was in Istanbul it was storming and it rained inside my room in my 5 star hotel on the Bosphorus. So maybe the room is Wonderful and I am carrying my very own rain cloud every time I step into the amazing capital of the Sublime Port. Unfortunately I don’t have time to ponder the mystery – Joe Biden awaits.

My business partner Najat and I are in Istanbul at the invitation of the ALLWORLD NETWORK for the Second Global Entrepreneur Summit under the aegis of Prime Minister Erdogan with Vice President Joe Biden opening the conference. When we get to the Congress Conference Hall we find hundreds of people lining up to register. It is now 10.25 am and Joe Biden is about to start. We are told by conference staff to quickly move into the conference hall and register later. So much for security. We were told we could not enter the conference without A) registering and B) our photo IDs hanging around our necks. Ah well Turkish and American secret service must trust entrepreneur’s then…yes that must be it – we entrepreneur’s are a trust worthy lot. Especially us fast growth entrepreneurs. It must be the fast return on your investment that makes us so special.

The conference is opened in Turkish by a lovely young woman swiftly followed by a corporate film in Turkish but really it is classically made so it is not hard for two veteran film-makers to understand. Lots of speeded up images showing work, people and clouds going into the future. Half way through I lose the thread when the same images are shown a second time with images of poverty segueing into split screens of beautiful people, poetic sunsets and multiracial kids playing with corn. But I guess those kids are the fast growth entrepreneur’s of the future and the corn is the high yield or return on your investment. Yes that must be it.

We soon realise that we will need the simultaneous translators as most of the speeches are in Turkish. So I go to find them. Sorry, madam, the girl tells me – without registration you cannot get a translator! Ok, too bad Erdogan’s speech will be a mystery.

After a few speeches His Excellency Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, the Minister for Economy for the United Arab Emirates is introduced. Gist of speech – UAE is using it’s oil money to create a knowledge based economy and next year the third global summit for Entrepreneurs will be in the UAE – of course. He then laments the fact that the Arabs and Muslims did not come up with it themselves but it is yet another American initiative extended towards Muslim and Arab countries even after the 9/11 tragedy.

More Turkish MPs and Ministers came to the podium but no Erdogan. Ok so he will be the last or just before Biden. American politicians are either born knowing how to give speeches or they’re born actors or well hell, they can’t half deliver a line. Even when you’ve heard it all before it sounds fresh and yes – dare I say it – inspirational. Maybe it was just that I listened to 40 minutes of unrelenting Turkish. Gist of speech: wishes Erdogan, on behalf of Obama and his administration, a speedy recovery (explains his absence – most disappointed). Trade between Turkey and the US has grown 45% in the last year. He would love to be at next year’s conference in the UAE – if he’s re-elected – otherwise whoever. US wants deeper ties between American Entrepreneurs and significant Muslim nations. Democratic revolutions (the Arab Spring) are ‘literally imbued with entrepreneurial spirit – risk, initiative, steadfast determination and a unifying ideal. The next Steve Jobs could be a Turk or possibly come from the UAE…the man behind me very solemnly told his friend that Steve was Syrian – as if that explained his genius or perhaps his rebellious spirit oh I see it must be his entrepreneurship – yes that’s it.

In fact Mr Biden brought up Mr Jobs no less than four times in the speech – almost as many as the word entrepreneur. Poor Steve – no rest for genius entrepreneurs – even in death! Going back to Biden’s speech he mentions women and excitedly tells the audience that if they didn’t know it already women are just as clever as men. The audience applauded this incredible insight, whereupon he continued that countries who did not encourage women in business were going to be left behind. Aspiring entrepreneurs must do what comes naturally to them – dream – and in the words of Mr Steve Jobs – Think Different. Think Different for we are at an ‘inflection point in history’. And entrepreneurs have a chance like never before to steer the world onto a path – a successful path from this inflection point. I was amazed by Mr Biden’s hindsight or is that future hindsight..hmmm…it’s a conundrum. Just how could he tell we are on an inflection point in history – could be foresight. And entrepreneurs are going to save the world or at least steer it in the right direction…

Lots of applause. More speeches in Turkish. Lunch. Interviewed by the Arabic Turkish channel but I speak in English so may get left on cutting room floor – or in the Avid. Najat is flawless.

The panel after lunch had some very interesting people including the Turkish Minister of Finance and the CEO of ABRAJ CAPITAL, the largest private equity firm in the emerging markets.

At 6pm the AllWorld Network held a drinks party to welcome the ARABIA 500 + Turkey (including Pakistan). Najat and I discovered that we are ranked third in the AllWorld country rankings for Lebanon. We are proud. The Pakistan delegation invite the AllWord delegates to Reina’s – a cool Istanbuli club. We are so on.

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31 Jul 2011

How often does a film-maker find a subject standing in an opportune ray of light? I came across this man standing in the doorway of his blacksmith shop in the back streets of Marrakesh while filming the documentary Arabs: A Lost Identity.

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Mouna Mounayer, Fouad Sleiman, Mohab Shaneh Saz and the Bedouins of Wadi Rum filming the documentary Arab; A lost identity

On my very second outing as a fully fledged documentary director I was let loose on an unsuspecting Arab world. First port of call Wadi Rum. What most of you don’t know is that I grew up in a house in London where the film director David Lean had lunch every Sunday. Alas not with me and my family but with the family who owned the house before us. The fact that the maestro sat in the same dining room as I did gave me no small amount of frissons as I was growing up – yeah I know I was a strange child. So imagine my delight and my ambition when I found myself in the same place, with a camera and a crew. A place that my old chum David had (according to film lore) painted gold because it didn’t look yellow enough for him on-screen.

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My film crew and I spent hours, on a day where the temperature soared to over 42 degrees centigrade, looking for the perfect shots to be used as B-roll in a documentary film on the Buddhists. B-roll are usually general views shots that work well with more general narration, that is they are not specific to any one thing in the story. The shots were supposed to represent the birth of Buddha in his father’s palace in Nepal. Since the budget did not stretch to filming in Nepal (only India and Thailand) I had to find a location that could work behind the story of the Buddha’s birth and the sumptuousness of his early life in his father’s kingdom. After four hours of looking we spotted a Four Seasons Hotel nestled discreetly off the beaten path and as soon as we entered we realised that we found the birth place of Buddha. Well at least for the purposes of our film.

The Four Seasons Chiang Mai, Thailand. Location used in the documentary The Buddhists.

The Buddhists is part of the World Religions Series for Al Jazeera Documentary Channel. Written and directed by Mouna Mounayer.

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24 Jul 2011

Ok, I think that definitely my choice of themes for the this site is getting the better of me. You have to understand that my choice was based on a) all blogs look the same and I wanted one which looks different and b) what would look good on an iPad and mobile devices. The Shelf theme really looked cool and seemed on the surface to answer all my requirements. I made a list as I was told to do by WordPress before I started about what I wanted and why I wanted it.

I love the look of this site theme – its clean and aesthetically pleasing but if you have a lot of information it takes ages to scroll through it or I have just not found the right buttons or widgets or whatever it is that they’re called to make it happen. I recently told someone that I could run circles round them in the digital world. God I hate hubris.

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The autobiography ‘Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot’ by Guy Magar is the story of how the son of Egyptian immigrants fleeing from Abdel Nasser’s 1958 Egyptian revolution became a mainstream jobbing director in Hollywood. (more…)